The Awesome Spider-Dash: Origins

by Flufux

Celestia's Secret

Minisode
Celestia's Secret

Celestia was most certainly not a night owl by any definition of the term.

She hated to work in the dark, she despised the empty silence of the after work hours, and she absolutely loathed having to stay up to well over midnight. That was her sister's territory, not hers.

So then what possible reason could she have for still being awake and working at her office at this extremely late hour?

Well, simply put, Luna (who pretty much lived in the shadows and exposed herself to about as much sunlight as a vampire)...had called in sick, leaving Celestia to deal with her workload for the night.

Though between Starlight Glimmer's insistence that working on her current project was more important than going home for the day, the frankly ridiculous amount of late night shipments coming in from Everfree that she had to micromanage, a few obligatory routine security checks, a trade dispute between her company and Storm Tech that seemed to be going nowhere, and even a ton of suicide-inducing fan-mail to go through, there were no shortage of things to deal with even this late.

Slumping over her desk while going through Starlight's most recent dissertation on 'Arc Reactor' technology on her computer, Celestia looked bored beyond belief. Sure, it was an interesting topic to read about, and she applauded her former student for having the ingenuity to come up with such a thing...but even after three full cups of coffee, she was just too tired to really care.

With most of her staff, including her secretary Raven Inkwell, having already gone home for the night, she couldn't even rely on them for help...or have someone to talk to either. It was at times like these that she wished she had just stayed an ordinary school teacher instead of becoming the owner of a massive science corporation.

Life was so much simpler back then.

Of course, what she really wanted to do when she was growing up was to become nothing less than an acclaimed actress...but that career didn't really go anywhere...for a number of reasons.

At the very least, taking over Luna's duties for the night gave Celestia a bit more of an appreciation for the hard work her sister did all the time...even if it was boring her half to death by this point.

With a sigh...she got out of her chair and took a few steps towards the coffeemaker sitting on a bench at the other end of the room...because apparently, she wasn't caffeinated enough.

"Oh, how I wish something interesting would happen..." Celestia mumbled to herself.

Unfortunately for her though, she really should have been more careful with what she wished for...as her night was indeed about to take an extremely unexpected turn.

---

Refuge in audacity.

That was a concept that Luna, and by extension her other half, firmly believed in when it all came down to it.

If you didn't already know, the phrase in question basically means when you try to get away with something by not being cautious, discreet or sensible...but instead by ramping up the absurdity of what you're doing to such an amazing level that you leave everyone else completely blindsided and confused by your actions and therefore get away with them.

However, to be successful in doing so, one would need a certain amount of boldness to your character...and Luna was as bold as they came.

The Nightmare Goblin was, in actuality, that boldness given life.

When she took on that persona, all of Luna's inhibitions were gone entirely, and she could do whatever it was she wanted whenever, and however, she wanted to do it.

In truth, her plan was actually rather simple and petty when you really broke it down to its core.

She wanted power and respect. Nothing more and nothing less.

All her life had she had felt powerless and overshadowed by those around her...especially by her sister. Celestia always got the glory and attention, was loved by all who set their eyes on her, and worst of all...she had the gall to act modest about that adoration.

Being the kind of person that she was, Luna could never outshine her by just being herself...and certainly not for lack of trying. So she tried instead to make a name for herself in the dark and unnoticed parts of the city...where the light never touched. Make them better, more welcoming, so that people could embrace the night rather than fear it.

However, even there...she was outshone yet again by someone else. Though this time not by her sister, but by the infamous Kingpin of Crime...also known as Rex Storm: the corrupt founder of the rival Storm Tech company. Through his vast criminal empire he extorted and ruled over the seedy underbelly of Canterlot with an iron fist and most certainly did not take kindly to potential enemies or rivals.

With those two standing in her way, Luna could never reach her full potential and always had to resort to playing second fiddle to whichever side she wanted to be on. Now, being the responsible and morally sound person that she was, Luna had made herself content with just staying where she was and let her ambitions rest...but whenever she happened to take on the persona of the Nightmare Goblin, nothing was out of reach for her.

However, the Goblin didn't deal in subtleties, instead she was bold and outrageous.

Want to hide your identity? How about working through proxies or choose a practical and inconspicuous disguise? Not a chance in hell! No, she decided to dress up in a full on Nightmare Night costume and send horrors into the dreams of any who saw her.

Need a vehicle to get around? How about an armoured car or at least an inconspicuous one? No, she went flying in on an experimental military-grade attack glider the likes of which the world had never seen!

Need a weapon on hand? Well, a gun or two wouldn't be unreasonable would it? For her, it most certainly would! She went into combat armed with nothing less than an arsenal worth of pumpkin-shaped grenades, bat-shaped throwing knives, plasma-shooting gloves and even an electrified sabre on hand.

And that was only scratching the surface.

In fact, the whole scheme she came up with when she released Chrysalis from prison, got her hired by Celestia as 'Doctor Silk Mane' and then told her to make sure the cross-species genetics project failed in the most spectacular way possible, that...was for no other reason than to undermine Celestia's authority and give Luna a shot at taking the company off her hands.

Plus, Chrysalis made a pretty decent scapegoat for when the question of how the Goblin got her hands on her advanced tech would eventually be asked. After all, nobody would suspect that someone who was already on the inside would need someone on the inside. Come to think of it, that was probably the only reason why she even bothered to recruit her in the first place rather than do it all by herself.

However, the sad truth of it all was that, at the end of the day, their partnership was never meant to last. They both knew that. The two of them were just too prideful, too power-hungry, and too untrustworthy for any alliance between the diabolic duo to be anything but brief. Good thing then for the Goblin that the Spider-Girl took care of the Changeling before she would need to do so herself.

Her plans didn't stop there though.

Once Celestia was gone and the company was left in her care, the next item on the agenda would be to kick Rex Storm off of his throne and declare herself the new Kingpin of Crime, giving CelestiaCorp to Luna and the criminal underworld to the Nightmare Goblin. A win-win scenario for both if she could pull it off...at least in the way the Goblin's saw it.

Refuge in audacity was the key...

...
...
...

...and also the reason why she was trying to gain Celestia's attention by launching a military-grade missile at her office window!

---

Celestia had just brewed herself a fresh cup of coffee and taken a brief satisfying sip of it when...out of nowhere, a very loud and very bright explosion tore right through her window and violently blasted smoke, flames and shards of broken glass into the room.

Even though she was standing quite a bit away from the blast, she was still close enough to feel the intense heat and powerful shockwave caused by it. Far more dangerous than that though were the sharp shards of glass flying at her at terminal velocity. Two of which hit her in her right arm while a third flew right into her forehead.

If that had happened to just about anyone else, they would most certainly be dead by now...but for some reason, Celestia had barely even flinched.

When the glass shards made contact with her delicate-looking skin, they did not tear right through her as you would expect them to do...instead, they bounced harmlessly off her as if her body was made of solid diamond. The ones hitting her arm did rip a hole in her sleeve though...but that hardly seemed to matter when the skin behind it didn't receive as much as a paper cut.

Furthermore, the shockwave itself, while powerful enough to send her desk flying across the room and into the wall on the other side, the most it did to Celestia was to startle her enough to drop her coffee mug on the floor. Her feet were still planted firmly where they were and hadn't budge an inch.

About the only part of her that visibly reacted to the attack at all were her long flowing hair that flickered around her head as it was hit by the wave of compressed air the explosion caused.

After it was over, Celestia was just standing there in her ruined office with a spilled cup of coffee on the floor, her yellow suit jacket damaged beyond repair, a new layer of dust covering her from head to toe, and her hair in a messy and chaotic state...but otherwise without a scratch.

She was still surprised as all hell though, and one could tell that by the baffled expression that was stuck on her face while her brain was slowly trying to make sense of what just happened. To say that she hadn't expected this to happen would definitively be a massive understatement.

...Then, a voice that somehow sounded both strangely familiar and yet also very unfamiliar to Celestia's ears broke her out of her trance and made her eyes set on a costumed figure with glowing blue eyes gently gliding over to her broken window.

"Ha-ha-ha-HAhahahahahahahahahaha! The queen of the sun sitting in her tower of lies and broken bones...casting shadows over all beneath you. You may not see those shadows, but I was born in them, and soon...they'll be mine to command. But for that to happen, the day will have to switch to night...and cast nightmares everlasting! Hahahahahahahaah!"

While Celestia didn't know that this masked menace reciting poetry to her was actually her very own little sister, it didn't take her long at all to figure out who she was dealing with...or at least the persona that person was using.

"The Nightmare Goblin, I presume?" she asked surprisingly calmly while she idly used her hands to dust off the ash from her jacket.

After parking her glider at the edge of the hole she just made, the Goblin stepped into the room like she owned the place. "In the flesh! I see you've been keeping tabs on me. Enjoy my work at the docks?"

Celestia clenched her fists and narrowed her eyes, yet otherwise remained motionless. "You mean when you murdered innocent people?" she asked sternly, yet still quite calmly.

"Why yes. How else am I supposed to get your attention?" Nightmare asked while picking up her sister's downed office chair, placed it back on its wheels, and sat down on it. "After all, if I'm going to take on the great Celestia herself, she'll need to take me seriously."

"Oh, I'll take you seriously alright..." Celestia warned dangerously. "You might regret that I do."

"Ha-ha! Is that a threat?" Goblin asked mockingly.

"Yes," she bluntly responded.

Then, in the blink of eye, Celestia had moved clear across the room and grabbed the villain by the neck with one hand and then dragged her off the chair and slammed her straight into the nearest wall, leaving a visible dent in it.

Now, Luna probably weighed about 76 kg, and with the heavy goblin armour, fabrics, and rather sizeable arsenal of weapons weighing her down even more, it would seem like lifting her off the ground would probably take some effort, but for Celestia...she only needed one hand on her throat to pin her against the wall and hold her dangling above the floor.

Clearly, she was a lot stronger than she looked.

While giving the intruder a very stern and harsh glare, Celestia said, "Listen to me, Goblin! I'll give you one chance to surrender peacefully and willingly turn yourself in for the crimes you've committed. Otherwise, I will have to make you do so by my strength alone, and trust me when I say that you'll wish you've picked the first option if I do."

Despite the immense pressure keeping her restrained under her titanium grip, the Nightmare Goblin didn't look concerned in the least. In fact, she was smiling. Despite her obvious disadvantage, it was clear that she definitively had some kind of trick up her sleeve.

"Hehehe...such a righteous flame you have," Goblin noted smugly, her voice a bit raspier than normal due to her wind pipe being rather harshly squeezed through her neck armour. However, even so, she showed no signs of distress. "Your grip is rather strong for a lanky middle aged woman, don't you think? And I don't know about you, but most people who take an explosion to the face don't usually look as pretty as you do. Seems I'm not the only one with secrets here."

A look of alarm briefly crossed Celestia's face when she realised what the villain was getting at, though she didn't say anything and just continued to stare her down.

As her arrogant smirk grew even wider, the Goblin looked her right in the eye and asked, "Isn't that right...Captain Jupiter?"

"WHO TOLD YOU THAT?!" Celestia demanded to know in loud booming voice while she slammed the Goblin into the wall a second time, her eyes literally starting to glow with righteous fury as she did so.

Coughing a bit to regain her breath, Nightmare still didn't stop smiling. "Heghh...I know many secrets. I've been... heh...collecting them for quite some time. Tell me, Celestia...do you miss being the big strong hero...gah...fighting criminals down on the streets...or are your powers just a painful reminder of all the lives you've hurt?"

Celestia took in a deep breath and calmed herself down a bit, loosening the grip she had on the Goblin just enough to let her breathe properly. "Is that your plan? Make me do whatever you want or else you'll tell everyone I used to be Captain Jupiter? Is that it?"

"Close...but no," Goblin answered, sounding a bit amused. "If I did that, then no one would believe me. Besides, you were never so selfish as to bow over to threats against yourself. That goes physically as well considering how tough your skin is."

She then got a dangerous glint in her eye. "However...the cunning warrior attacks neither body nor mind...nor anything fleeting or replaceable. Instead, she attacks the one thing you could never sacrifice...the one thing you could never bear to lose..."

"And what could that be?" Celestia asked in an angry tone.

"Heheh, the heart, Celestia!" she answered with a manic expression on her face. "She attacks your heart!"

A sudden feeling of dread hit her like a ton of bricks. "What do you mean by that?!"

The Nightmare Goblin quickly grabbed her sister's wrist and activated her plasma, sending a painful jolt through her arm that was powerful enough to make even the nearly invincible Celestia flinch long enough to lose her grip on her.

Once freed, she immediately followed that up with a spray of webbing that came from a very familiar-looking device on the Goblin's wrist that hit Celestia right in the eyes...leaving her distracted long enough for Nightmare to jump back on her parked glider.

By the time Celestia had managed to successfully rip the web out of her eyes, the Nightmare Goblin had flown the glider back far enough in the air that her sister couldn't reach her...at least not without making a very risky jump.

"Hahahahahahah-HAHAHAAH! If you want to know that, come to the roof! I have prepared quite the surprise for you," she challenged, not even bothering to hide the sinister undertones in that statement. "Just don't keep me waiting...trust me, that is something you'll regret."

Celestia snarled with rage as her eyes glowed brightly and golden rays of energy started to envelope her body. "You won't prevail, Goblin," she assured dangerously.

"We'll see..." was all Nightmare had to say to that before she boosted her thrusters up to maximum and began her ascent towards the roof of the CelestiaCorp Tower, cackling like a madwoman the whole way up.

Left behind in the ruins of her office, Celestia just stood there staring at her retreating enemy while a cold tranquil rage burned through her. She was no fool, she knew what the Goblin meant when she said that she would strike at her heart, and she did not like it one bit.

It was one thing to threaten her own life or her livelihood, but to threaten someone else...someone she cared deeply about...that was something that she would not stand for.

However, as her temper gradually became more intense, so did her appearance. Her hair almost seemed to have a life of its own as it flowed around wildly in a non-existent breeze, her skin started to glow brightly, and her pupils were pretty much invisible under the sun-like orange light emanating from her eyes.

This was the power that she had kept hidden for over 20 years...the power of Captain Jupiter...Canterlot's first superhero.

Though, impressive as she might look right now, after taking in a deep calming breath, Celestia's glow faded, her hair stilled, and soon enough, she looked no different than she normally did.

"Deep breaths...deep breaths...deep...breaths..." she repeated as a mantra while she closed her eyes and tried to regulate her breathing.

Though she was by far the most physically powerful meta-human Professor Starswirl had ever created back in the old days, her powers had eventually turned out to come with one heck of a drawback.

When used in moderation, her immense strength, speed and durability made her better able than anyone else to save people in need and defeat all sorts of dangerous supervillains...but the more she used them, the more addicted she became, and if she had them on for too long, her powers would eventually affect her mind, her temper, her inhibitions and her sanity.

She lost control once...and after that, she had made a promise to never use her powers ever again unless in self-defence.

However, if the Nightmare Goblin truly planned what Celestia feared she had planned...then she might just have to break that promise.

Author's Note:

Now, if you're wondering who the hell Captain Jupiter is supposed to be based on, then check out this clip:

I just changed the name from 'Colonel' to 'Captain' because...reasons.

Well, actually, when I first mentioned her, she was called Captain Marvel (as in Carol Danvers) because I thought that her powers reminded me of Celestia's...particularly in how her binary form have burning hair just like Daybreaker. However, I changed that up once I found out just how ridiculously powerful she is compared to anything Spider-Man would normally face. Plus, I actually want to keep this squarely focused on Spider-Man and characters specifically related to him rather than bring in a bunch of other Marvel characters like Iron Man or Captain America or whatnot.

Colonel Jupiter though fit the spot to a T given that he too tried to be a superhero (and a powerful one at that) but then ending up in a bad place after it started to affect his mind.

Why Celestia has this kind of backstory at all...well, I don't want to have to write an origin story for every supervillain Spider-Girl meets, so I decided that a few of them were defeated and then imprisoned a long time ago...just like how Celestia defeated Nightmare Moon, Discord, Tirek and King Sombra some 1 000 years ago and now its up to Twilight and her friends to stop them the second time around.

Comments

[Equestrian Defender]

STOP HIDING BEHIND HUMAN SHIELDS AND FACE HER LIKE THE MONSTER YOU ARE, GOBLIN!

Great chapter, btw. Keep up the good work. 👍

[zachary12]

nice work.

[Flufux]

9842655

STOP HIDING BEHIND HUMAN SHIELDS AND FACE HER LIKE THE MONSTER YOU ARE, GOBLIN!

Well, I guess she could...if she was a complete idiot. With how powerful Celestia is, attacking her head on would only lead to her own very humiliating defeat. The only way to really hurt her is to go after the few weaknesses Celestia has...namely the people she care about (who, might I add, are a lot easier to hurt).

[Equestrian Defender]

9842890
Yeah, I know. I was just imagining I was a superhero in Celestia's position. That would probably be what I would say.

[Flufux]

9842891
Now that you mention it, I can actually imagine Celestia saying that word for word.

[Equestrian Defender]

9842926
Feel free to use it in the next chapter. I'd love to see that.

[Hungry Hero]

Well,........I definitely didn’t see or in this case read that one coming...

[Flufux]

9855533
So...does that mean you consider it a good plot twist?

[Hungry Hero]

9855649
In this case/story/chapter,....that’s a definite big Yes!